It would be advantageous in breast procedure rooms to allow the medical professional to operate the cabinet x-ray unit to analyze the excised breast tissue or specimen utilizing the unit to both x-ray and capture an optical image of the sample for informational and/or diagnostic purposes.
The photo/captured optical image may be displayed in real-time or from being stored in memory on the monitor either overlaid onto the resultant x-ray image of the sample or as a Picture-In-a-Picture (PIP) overlaid onto the x-ray image of the sample.
Today, conventional breast specimen systems can gather a digital breast specimen radiogram separately. In these systems, the radiograms of a tissue or bone specimen are viewed separately for analysis.
With a unit incorporating a camera, the clinician can utilize the resultant photo to expeditiously visualize the specimen excised from the patient to confirm orientation of the excised sample saving time for both the patient on the treatment table and the clinician.
While cameras incorporated into x-ray cabinets have been around, reference to U.S. Pat. No. 2018/0275076, Butani, et al. entitled “SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CABINET X-RAY SYSTEMS WITH CAMERA,” disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in the present application, one aspect differentiating this disclosure from previous methods is the differentiating factor of attaining the 2 images, an optical image (including an HD image) and a radiograph, in the same and exact orientation and displaying them either PIP or overlaid upon each other.
Digital breast specimen tomosynthesis as exhibited in U.S. Pat. No. 2015/0131773 (U.S. Pat. No. 9,138,193), Lowe, et al., entitled “SPECIMEN RADIOGRAPHY WITH TOMOSYNTHESIS IN A CABINET,” the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in the present application, may help reduce the camouflaging effects of dense breast tissue and improve the sensitivity of specimen radiography for breast cancer detection in dense breasts and utilization of this disclosure is so embodied as an example.
Currently it is believed that there is not a system or method incorporating a real-time camera in a cabinet x-ray system as included in the present disclosure.
Specimen Radiography is considered the most cost-effective screening method for the detection of breast cancer in surgically removed breast tissue. However, the sensitivity of specimen radiography can be limited by the presence of overlapping dense fibroglandular tissue in the breast specimen. Dense parenchyma reduces the conspicuity of abnormalities and thus constitutes one of the main causes of missed breast cancer diagnosis. The advent of full-field digital detectors offers opportunities to develop advanced techniques for improved imaging of dense breasts, such as digital tomosynthesis.
A device capturing both an x-ray image and a real-time image of the specimen facilitates confirmation and orientation for the clinician to verify margins are achieved by the professional to the patient.
A preferred embodiment of such a system would incorporate an HD (High-Definition) Camera into a cabinet x-ray unit allowing the system to capture an HD Image and x-ray image of the specimen.
The above systems relate to specimen radiography but such system's use is not isolated to specimen radiography but may be utilized for non-destructive testing, pathology as well as any radiographic analysis, organic and non-organic, requiring a cabinet x-ray system but is not limited to just an HD camera but any camera fitting within the confines of the cabinet x-ray system.